NEW DELHI: Pas­sage of a bill to make in­stant triple ta­laq il­le­gal and a puni­tive of­fence will be one of the pri­or­i­ties of the Na­tional Demo­cratic Al­liance (NDA) gov­ern­ment in the win­ter ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, in which the Op­po­si­tion is seek­ing to cor­ner it on a range of is­sues – from the Rafale fighter jet deal to the in­ternecine fight in the Cen­tral Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (CBI).

The ses­sion starts from Mon­day, but the open­ing day will only see obit­u­ary ref­er­ences to for­mer prime min­is­ter Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee and par­lia­men­tary af­fairs min­is­ter Ananth Ku­mar. The be­gin­ning of the ses­sion will also co­in­cide with the count­ing of votes in elec­tions to the Mad­hya Pradesh, Te­lan­gana, Ra­jasthan, Ch­hat­tis­garh and Mi­zo­ram as­sem­blies.

New par­lia­men­tary af­fairs min­is­ter Naren­dra Singh To­mar said on Fri­day that the state elec­tion re­sults would have lit­tle im­pact on the win­ter ses­sion.

NEW DELHI: Pas­sage of a bill to make in­stant triple ta­laq il­le­gal and a puni­tive of­fence will be one of the pri­or­i­ties of the Na­tional Demo­cratic Al­liance (NDA) gov­ern­ment in the win­ter ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, in which the Op­po­si­tion is seek­ing to cor­ner it on a range of is­sues, from the Rafale fighter jet deal to the in­ternecine fight in the Cen­tral Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (CBI).

The ses­sion starts Mon­day, but the open­ing day will only see obit­u­ary ref­er­ences to for­mer prime min­is­ter Atal Bi­hari Va­j­payee and par­lia­men­tary af­fairs min­is­ter Ananth Ku­mar. The be­gin­ning of the ses­sion will also co­in­cide with the count­ing of votes in elec­tions to the Mad­hya Pradesh, Te­lan­gana, Ra­jasthan, Ch­hat­tis­garh and Mi­zo­ram as­sem­blies.

New par­lia­men­tary af­fairs min­is­ter Naren­dra Singh To­mar said on Fri­day that the state elec­tion re­sults would have lit­tle im­pact on the win­ter ses­sion.

“Look, these elec­tion re­sults af­ter all are mat­ters of state as­sem­blies. I don’t think there’s any rea­son to think that de­vel­op­ments in states are go­ing to de­cide the agenda or the fate of a Par­lia­ment ses­sion. All po­lit­i­cal par­ties also un­der­stand these things and there are sev­eral

is­sues—both from the gov­ern­ment as well as the Op­po­si­tion’s side—that need to be raised and dis­cussed on the floor of the House,” To­mar told HT on Fri­day.

The gov­ern­ment will pri­ori­tise re­plac­ing three or­di­nances, or ex­ec­u­tive or­ders—on triple ta­laq, Com­pa­nies Act amend­ment and the Med­i­cal Coun­cil of In­dia Act amend­ment—with full-fledged laws, of­fi­cials said. The or­di­nance on triple ta­laq crim­i­nalised the prac­tice of in­stance divorce in the Mus­lim com­mu­nity that has been de­clared ar­bi­trary and against the tenets of Is­lam by the Supreme Court. The Com­pa­nies Act amend­ment or­di­nance al­tered sev­eral pro­vi­sions in the Com­pa­nies Act, 2013 re­lat­ing to penal­ties, among oth­ers. The Med­i­cal Coun­cil of In­dia Act amend­ment will al­low the sup­pres­sion of the body for a year and the con­sti­tu­tion of a board of gov­er­nors that will per­form the coun­cil’s func­tions.

The ses­sion comes amid a re­newed con­fronta­tion be­tween the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Op­po­si­tion over a host of is­sues in­clud­ing al­leged wrong­do­ing in the Rafale jet fighter deal that the gov­ern­ment has stren­u­ously de­nied, the feud be­tween CBI di­rec­tor Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana that forced the gov­ern­ment to strip both men of their pow­ers, charges of sex­ual mis­con­duct against for­mer Union min­is­ter MJ Ak­bar, and the au­ton­omy of the Re­serve Bank of In­dia, among oth­ers. “The gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion must find ways to dis­cuss things in Par­lia­ment and run the House in an orderly man­ner...,” said for­mer Par­lia­men­tary af­fairs sec­re­tary Afzal Aman­ul­lah.